A Washington state couple has received conditional release of all three of their three babies after the state’s Child Protective Services (CPS) seized them November 6 after the couple gave birth to twins in an unassisted home birth. The couple’s third child is also a baby, less than one year old.
Their lawyer is now charging that the state unlawfully took Erica May Carey and Cleave Rengo’s children in a case fueled by anti-Christian bias.
“I don’t believe the state has yet made its case why it took those children,” Stephen Pidgeon told LifeSiteNews.
A judge released the children to their parents last Friday with a list of conditions, giving the couple foster care status so that the state could retain custody.
According to King5News, the court's case was based upon the couple's refusal to take the children to the hospital for a checkup after the birth, their decision to use breast milk instead of recommended formula, and previous calls to police from Carey about domestic issues.
However, Pidgeon alleged that the case is one of several in Washington State where people of faith are being targeted. He told LifeSiteNews earlier this week that he plans to file a Writ of Habeas Corpus today to compel the state to produce proper evidence in the case or release the children completely.
Carey gave birth to their two younger children, a boy and a girl, at home on October 2. The homebirth was successful and a wonderful experience for the family, said Pidgeon. He added that their decision to have an unassisted homebirth and to use natural medical treatments are based on their Christian beliefs.
However, a family member called authorities to report the birth and paramedics came to the home.
The children were assessed as fine, and the paramedics recommended they visit a pediatrician with the newborns for a check-up. Rengo and Carey did so, receiving another bill of clean health for the kids.
The relative’s phone call also prompted a visit from a nurse practitioner, who noted some eczema on the Rengo’s 10-month-old son and recommended a visit to the ER for treatment. The couple also followed this suggestion, ultimately adding the doctor’s prescribed hydrocortisone cream to the natural treatment they’d been using, and the condition cleared up.
Rengo and Carey never refused any medical treatment that was recommended for their children, Pidgeon said.
“They were reluctant and opposed, but they never refused,” he told LifeSiteNews.
“They wanted the authority in my household,” Rengo said in a report by the local NBC affiliate KING5. “I told them, 'I'm a Christian and God gave me the authority in my household.”
Sometime later CPS came to take the children, giving the couple no warning.
Rengo was out for a walk with the eldest child when CPS grabbed him, said Pidgeon, and they came to the home for the twins while Carey was nursing. She ran to the neighbors for help, he said, and CPS ultimately brought in law enforcement with guns to take the babies.
“They took them by force at the neighbors’,” Pidgeon said.
Pidgeon told LifeSiteNews he has had three other families, as well as families in other countries, approach him for help in similar circumstances.
“People are terrified of this story because it represents the worst of human history,” he said. “Where one person can write a letter and someone shows up at your door to take your children.”
Pidgeon suggested that the case was part of a wider problem, pointing out that in Washington State the secular humanist movement has published writings stating that raising children as Christians is a form of child abuse. “They consider people of faith to be deranged,” he said.
Pidgeon believes the anti-Christian bigotry comes into play in the Rengo case, both through their family, the motivation for the phone call, and via state government.
Conditions for releasing the children to the parents included that the couple take a psychiatric assessment and attend domestic violence courses.
Pidgeon told LifeSiteNews that in the state’s eyes, Carey, who has said she submits to her husband’s authority in the household because of her Christian faith, needs to learn that this is a form of domestic abuse.
Rengo will not graduate from the domestic violence course until he admits to being a “perpetrator of domestic violence,” something the judge called him in open court last Friday, according to Pidgeon. If Rengo does not admit to this by the end of the class, Pidgeon said, the children will be taken back.
The class is costing $1400, a significant strain on the family, and it is being administered by a non-certified “medical professional,” he said. The family was told as well to leave their home and find a new one, also a burden. Meanwhile, no adults are allowed in their home without being court-approved.
The couple will remain under strict CPS scrutiny, and any violation will result in immediate seizure of the children.
Pidgeon said there is no end date to the order.
During the time the state had custody of their children, the Rengos missed their oldest son’s first birthday. The lawyer also said that while in state custody the toddler’s eczema returned much worse than before and the child also developed pneumonia, while all three kids getting ear infections.
These health affects, he said, are the result of trauma from the seizure, and attachment issues from being separated from their parents. While the children were under state custody the parents could only visit one a week, with the result that Carey had to fight to keep her breast milk from drying up during this time.
“Every time it's like torment to my soul when they pull them away from my breasts,” Carey told King5. “Those are my babies. They're our children. They have no right to them.”
Everything presented by CPS in court was fourth-tier evidence, Pidgeon told LifeSiteNews, and no medical professional has ever said the children were abused, neglected or in danger.
While the government agency will not comment on the incident, it did say it does not remove children due to home birthing, and also said in a statement, “that a court determined a child's safety required removal from the home.”
One advocate for parents’ rights said that parents’ choices in rearing their children should have primacy and that the government shouldn’t assume abuse or neglect without sufficient proof.
The liberty interest of parents in directing the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right, according to constitutional attorney Michael Farris, president of ParentalRights.org.
“State actors should not be quick to intrude into the decisions of families, unless there is evidence of abuse or neglect,” Farris said. “And a parent’s choice to do things differently perhaps than you or I would does not automatically constitute abuse or neglect.”
“The Supreme Court has held that ‘just because the decision of a parent… involves risks does not automatically transfer the power to make that decision from the parents to some agency or officer of the state,’” Farris continued.
“I hope the judge in this case is conscious of this,” said Farris. “And will continue to make decisions that properly balance the protection of the children, which is absolutely a vital outcome, with the right of these parents to raise their children by their own beliefs and conscience.”
If the court grants Pidgeon’s writ on December 12, state custody of the children will be removed, he said, but it will be the beginning of a long legal process of clearing the Rengos.
The court could deny the writ, which would result in an appeal, or the judge could order an evidentiary hearing. Both of these will mean the state will be called to account in producing evidence, said Pidgeon.
If the court refuses to hear his writ, as Pidgeon said it did on December 2, he will seek a preliminary injunction in federal court.